BarcelonaThe modernization of geriatric residences and people with disabilities and mental health will have to wait. The Generalitat gives the centers another year so that they can show that their facilities and their services fulfill the standards to be able to offer places to beneficiaries of the Dependency Law. In principle, this accreditation process was completed next month, but the Department of Social Rights and Inclusion has postponed until October 2026 the period to make it easier for these services to correct the shortcomings that prevent them today to receive approval and save them from the closure.
How many places will be affected? The department directed by Mònica Martínez-Bravo assures that the impact will be very little and, therefore, states that the waiting list will not be aggravated by the 18,000 people and three years on average for a residence of the elderly. The Ministry insists on saying that a “transformation process” will take place because the eventual loss of places will be offset by the 6,000 new commitments. However, it is not guaranteed that the square is neither in the same neighborhood or in the city where the beneficiary of the service lives. Among the sector is a wide fork: between 3,000 and 12,000 places could be in danger because of the inability to be able to adjust to the new criteria, among a range of more than 62,000
Social Rights hopes that this one -year extension – which approves the Governing Council on Tuesday at the first meeting after the summer – to help the centers that want to continue in the public system. At the moment, 1,250 accreditation applications have been reached and 500 have been resolved, between positive and negative. However, since it is an open process, the property of the center can solve the deficiencies and re-request their approval. Only 61 files have been considered that they are not accreditable, and the number of places that have been suspended has not been specified, but the Ministry insists that none of the families who benefit today must suffer. The square will continue in the public system until the death of the user, and from here the department will stop paying it.
Triple rooms
The vast majority of negatives to approve the accreditation are due to the structure of the building or home where the residences are located due to the impossibility of doing works to adapt the spaces to the established criteria. In this section, the centers must offer rooms of more than 8 square meters, to finish those of more than two beds (about 1,600 places are in triple rooms) and have the capacity to expand the corridors or gain common spaces, as well as have adapted accesses.
Neighborhoods densely populated or with old homes are those that concentrate the residences to which they will cost them the most adjusting to the regulations. For example, the Barcelona Eixample, which is also harmed by the pressure of tourist flats, and other cities with an aged housing park.
But for now, according to the Ministry, it is hoped that there will be no large loss of places, partly thanks to the Bonus Credit Line of 50 million euros that the Catalan Finance Institute has just opened to help residences update facilities and adapt to new criteria.
Minimum structural criteria
The accreditation process responds to a decree of 2020 in which it was required that the centers that wanted to work with the public system had to comply with minimal structural, technical and legal criteria in order to continue to be a supplier of the Generalitat. Last summer, social rights gave a few weeks to submit the documentation, a period that the employers criticized because they considered it too short.
For the President of the Association of Directors Ascad, Andrés Rueda, the extension is a “ shot forward ” of the Generalitat for not having to do without thousands of public places, and maintains that 80% of the residences are in buildings built before 2015, the date on which the rule governing the criteria was approved. He complains that “subjective” criteria are being applied and accredited if “documents are sent without a logo or the commercial name of the bleach is not specified”.
However, from the UPIMIR employer, which brings together small and medium -sized residences, the “facilities” that the Generalitat puts in the centers. The president of the entity, Ignasi Freixa, states that the process should have been done with the “consensus and not the decree”, but also indicates that everyone was warned of what the conditions are to continue in the public system. In line, the President of the Employers of Great Acra Residences, Cinta Pascual, says that since 2015 there has been “enough time” to adapt and who has not done so is because it may not “compensate” the public concert.
In order to reassure the sector, the Department has reported that centers that do not pass the exam for being a residence will be able to transform into other services with less demands, such as flats for minors guarded or foster care for women victims of sexist violence.
